When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

Tomorrow, like for sure. We'll have our plan out and explicit and you can read it. Honest to betsy. Pinky promise.

Quote:

This month, Republicans in Congress achieved what they declared to be a major victory: they sent an Obamacare repeal to the president’s desk as test-run for next year, when they say there will be a Republican president in office to sign it.

But there’s just one problem with that plan. The details have been scant as to what the GOP presidential candidates -- who have uniformly railed against the Affordable Care Act -- intend to enact in its place.

After five years of promises to deliver an Obamacare replacement plan -- more than 20 such promises by one count --the GOP Congress still hasn't produced. And the same mix of political perils and policy paralysis that has hamstrung the Republicans on the Hill has left the party's presidential contenders with paltry real health care proposals that are short on details and long on vague assurances. The party that has spent years avoiding grappling with the economic, political, and policy complexities of health care reform seems no closer now that it was when Obamacare first became law.

http://bit.ly/209UDwl

1 Reply

@blatham,

This

blatham wrote:

By the way, when I was reading some history on William F Buckley the other day, I found that when he was in the CIA, his working partner was E Howard Hunt. I didn't know that. I had known that the National Review got start-up money from the CIA.

If you've forgotten what a scumbag Hunt was, read the section in the wikipedia piece below titled, "Watergate and Related Scandals" http://bit.ly/1RPrANn

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@blatham,

The piece you quoted is based on the unstated but implicit premise that a government managed health care plan is a requirement in any event. It's clear to me that you and most Democrats accept that premise, but many other people don't. You are once again projecting your own prejudices on others and faulting them for their inconsistency.

The fact that Obamacare has raised the cost of health care for a very large number of its participants and that a large portion of the exchanges created under it have drifted into bankrupcy appears not to concern you. This structure was created by Democrats in the Congress over the objections of Republicans and in defiance of any recommendations they proposed for it. They have no obligation to either repair or replace it.

This is somewhat similar to your perception that there is a coherent, self-reinforcing right wing media, and while there may be a few counterparts on the left, the majority of the media are dispassionate and uncommitted.

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@blatham,

I understand that in the context of the world, his positions probably seem mainstream. However, here in the US, we have don't have the world to work with, but the other extremes in the congress to work with. Also, some of his positions might not be what other governments in the world wants and if he is not able compromise, agreements would never be met.

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@revelette2,

I doubt that any informed observers actually believe that Sanders could actually get his proposals enacted into law. In that respect they are similar to many of those advocated by Trump.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
He seems just as ideological in the other direction as does the right wing extremes.

In the present context of America's left, he is extreme. But that modern context reflects a long drift rightwards in the US that began in the early seventies. At that time, pretty much every university had a Marxist/Leninist group on campus. Socialist broadsheets were handed out regularly at train stations and on the street. Nixon started the EPA. Etc.

I believe the econonic failures of the post colonial socialist governments in Africa and, far more significantly the collapse of the Marxist experiments in the unlamented Soviet empire in Russia and Central Europe had much more to do with the demise of the various Marxist/Leninist groups on Amrican campuses than any supposed "rightward drift" in this country.

The EPA that Nixon created didn't claim jurisdcition over every creek or drainage ditch in the country.

I recognize that to one who assumes he is necessarily the center of the political spectrum and the fixed point in the political universe, all movement appears external, but the fact is that the political drift in this country for the last few decades hgas been chiefly to the left and the current polarization that prevails is a consequence of it.

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@georgeob1,

That?! Good grief. First graph is simply factual history. As regards the second (Hunt a scumbag) one only needs to read the passage linked.

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@georgeob1,

Quote georgeob1:

Quote:

...the fact is that the political drift in this country for the last few decades hgas been chiefly to the left and the current polarization that prevails is a consequence of it.

Back in the seventies and eighties, no Presidential candidate of either party wold advocate getting rid of Social Security and Medicaid in their present form. Now just about all the Republicans are advocating that, whether through "means testing", (which would deny them to any elderly who weren't flat broke), or other methods.

That's huge move to the Right on a very big issue.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

The piece you quoted is based on the unstated but implicit premise that a government managed health care plan is a requirement in any event.

I gather you refer to the piece on GOP promises to draw up and publish an Obamacare replacement plan. That's what they've been promising to do for years.

"Requirement". I don't know why we ought to consider there is any moral requirement to, say, provide medical insurance for those 20 million who have it now and did not before, many of whom would now be dead without it. I suppose you could say that my notion of a moral duty here is prejudiced. Clearly, a similar notion - that we should work to cure cancer, that this is a morally required pursuit - is a prejudiced notion.

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@blatham,

A healthy country benefits everybody. That's a fact. Most countries with universal health care understand that simple fact.

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@cicerone imposter,

I know. And that's quite aside from the the moral abomination of letting millions of fellow citizens go without proper healthcare, particularly given that all other nations in the free world manage it.

And let's note that there in all those other nations, there is no significant portion of their populations that wish to get rid of their systems and replace them with what America had before Obamacare. In Canada, for example, no political party, no matter how conservative, has forwarded a platform plank stating they would eviscerate our existing system and move to privatization. They don't because they know they'd get absolutely clobbered in future elections. And that understanding is a fundamental rationale in Kristol's '93 memo on why the GOP had to destroy Hillarycare - citizens would have good cause to be reminded that government can make their lives better thus working great damage on the conservative axiom that his can not be so.

As a minor related point, years ago I wrote a post on Sarah Palin's facebook page noting that Israel had a single payer system quite like Canada. That post got immediately deleted and I was blocked from posting there.

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@blatham,

There are many moral abominations out there, but I believe the absence of a government managed health care system in a rich developed country that itself is one of the major sources in the world for new medical treatments and techniques, isn't a major one. I recognize that it's axiomatic for many here to believe that in the absence of a government managed program for anything, there is nothing available. The opposite is in fact the rule. Giovernment managed systems usually imnvolve shortages and rationing, while competitive markets generally deliver abundance and higher quality.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I recognize that it's axiomatic for many here to believe that in the absence of a government managed program for anything, there is nothing available.

False. I doubt there is anyone at all here who thinks that is so. As I've noted before, all the economies of the western industrialized world are mixed economies, including the US. All redistribute wealth and all have progressive taxation. All, or certainly most, have social programs more generous than the US. Etc.

But let me put this challenge to you. Please identify a broadly successful and relatively free nation that exists anywhere now or that existed in the past which matches your notion of an optimal governmental arrangement. If you cannot do that, then explain how/why you imagine such a think will work.

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@blatham,

It's a shame how much of the wealth of the United States is redistributed to fat-cat capitalists with friends in government.

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@Setanta,

Well, yeah. There is that. Earlier, I posted something on the wealth of the 60 richest individuals equaling the wealth held by the poorest half of the world's population. But I suppose it might be the case that those 60 have just been getting up early in the morning and working a lot of overtime.

1 Reply

@blatham,

Quote:

As a minor related point, years ago I wrote a post on Sarah Palin's facebook page noting that Israel had a single payer system quite like Canada. That post got immediately deleted and I was blocked from posting there.

Pretty intolerant. Why would you want to post there anyway?

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

But I suppose it might be the case that those 60 have just been getting up early in the morning and working a lot of overtime.

A lot of them probably did, years ago. Doubt they've changed much since.

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@revelette2,

I've posted in a lot of places over the years. In that case, I was following along to get a better sense of her fans, what they were thinking and why they were thinking it. Some discussion on healthcare was on-going and most everything said was hugely misinformed or uniformed. I brought up Israel because the modern christian right is now joined at the hip with Likud policies and ideologies yet usually knows little about the country or its history. And, of course, because of ideas held on social programs and healthcare. I hoped to have those folks think more carefully. It was an experiment that didn't work. But I learned a lot about her fans.

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@McGentrix,

Quote:

A lot of them probably did, years ago.

That would account for this disparity.

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From Steve Benen

Quote:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said late last week that he believes Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would be easy to defeat in November, but he sees Sanders as the tougher candidate. (If you think Priebus would be candid about his actual preferences, I have a bridge I'd love to sell you).

Quote:

Former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon (R), a Ted Cruz supporter and surrogate, questioned Trump’s chances in the Palmetto State. “A thrice-married man is going to come into South Carolina expecting to be the Republican nominee?” Condon asked Politico incredulously. It’s worth noting that Newt Gingrich, a thrice-married man, won the South Carolina primary in 2012.

1 Reply

When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

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